Dominion versus Stewardship

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’”                                  Genesis 1:27-28

I, and many contemporary Christians have interpreted the ‘dominion passage’ as to basically refer to the idea of good stewardship, that the harsh ruling connotation of the words was just that, modern connotations of a more pastoral intention by God.

A Christian colleague of mine in the biological sciences has been studying the original Hebrew of Genesis, in preparation for a book he’s writing. He presented some of his thoughts to our faculty group recently. I learned from him that in fact, the original Hebrew is correctly translated, connotations and all.

According to him, the word for subdue is kabash. Yes, in the sense of putting the kabash on an idea. It does mean subdue as in putting down an enemy or a rebellion. This has an even more profound implication:  that Creation is harsh and an enemy in need of being subdued. But wait, it gets better—God declares that this harsh, untamed Creation is good, and that humanity’s charge to tame it is very good!

This awareness of the Hebrew has rocked my image of God. If you’ve read this blog for very long, I have often commented that our definitions of the words ‘goodness,’ ‘holiness,’ and ‘righteousness’ are far too tame. Yet here again is another indication that God is no mere benevolent grandfather in the sky, but something far wilder, far more…, well more, than we can possibly imagine. He is no urbane metrosexual, but a living Being of Power, who demands we conform to His image, refusing to conform to ours, even delighting in shattering our views of Him because they are too small.

Then the word for rule (‘rule over the fish in the sea…”) is radah. This means to rule as a king. It has a royal connotation to it. In order to interpret it properly, we need to look at what God demanded of kings. Look up all of Psalm 72 on your own (homework), but here are the first seven verses:

Endow the king with your justice, O God,

   the royal son with your righteousness.

May he judge your people in righteousness,

   your afflicted ones with justice.

May the mountains bring prosperity to the people,

   the hills the fruit of righteousness.

May he defend the afflicted among the people

   and save the children of the needy;

   may he crush the oppressor.

May he endure as long as the sun,

   as long as the moon, through all generations.

May he be like rain falling on a mown field,

   like showers watering the earth.

In his days may the righteous flourish

   and prosperity abound till the moon is no more.

If this is indeed the kind of behaviour God expects from a king, then radah in Genesis 1:28 does convey the idea of lifting up, taming for better use, almost in the sense of bringing out the perfect gem hidden in the rough stone. Therefore, taken together, God’s commands for us to kabash and radah the Creation form a vastly richer picture of what our work on Earth is meant to be. It is no mere idyllic scene, neither is it merely survival of the fittest, but a great work, with meaning, purpose and reward.

{For a more thorough article on the Hebrew words, read this.}

As Christians, we need to stop making apologies for God as if He’s some quirky or misunderstood uncle. We need to understand what He says about Himself and get to know Him, proclaiming rightly all of His character. He says that He will offend people, that they will stumble over Him, and consequently set themselves over against Him.

But how can we give them the opportunity to make that choice in an informed manner if we ourselves don’t know Him? He is not a tame God. He commanded us to tame nature, and that He would tame us. Yet, instead we often try to have nature tame us (i.e. radical environmentalism) and then we try to tame God. That is the heart of paganism.

SDG

Walking Wounded

Tonight, I was chatting online with a friend from high school who just made tenure in another state. We were acquaintances in high school, even sitting next to each other in class sometimes, but never were close, so reconnecting at the last reunion and staying in touch with her and her new boyfriend (also a HS friend), has been a joy. She revealed tonight how unhappy her home life had been all those years ago, having to be the parent, and growing up too fast.

She is taking the time to work through the baggage and heal from that and the dissolution of her first marriage several years ago. She seems to have a fairly healthy perspective, and said that what happened was meant to be because it’s helped make her who she is today.

That comment resonated with something in me. It reminded me of the oft-quoted and misquoted Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

We often make two mistakes with this passage. 1) that it says all things are good, and 2) it works for good for all people.

#1 is wrong because not all things are good. Sin is sin, evil is evil, and their consequences are real pain, real death, real suffering. Yet, God works blessing out of them and redeems them. Does this make the events ‘good’? No. Would it have been better if they hadn’t happened? It is a dangerous thing to play ‘what if?’ It is mere speculation. God doesn’t have a Plan B—His Plan A is so robust, it allows for and corrects for things that are truly bad and evil, so there really isn’t a place for ‘what if?’

It would be easier for us in some respects if we could take refuge in a Plan B Creation—“well, He wanted Eden, but He got this mess instead and He’s making the best of it along with us.” But this is wrong. It makes God too small. The Bible is clear that the Cross was in the blueprints, not the change order, so this must be Plan A.

Doesn’t that make God some form of capricious, morally imperfect, sado-masochistic or something worse? No. Scripture doesn’t leave that option open for us either. His moral purity, holiness, righteousness, and goodness are trumpeted on nearly every page.

What Scripture teaches is that God is a God of Reality. He deals with the good, bad and ugly, and insists we do as well. Scripture is not sugar-coated. That’s what gives it its authenticity and simultaneously makes it so hard to swallow.

If He created it, and knew what was going to happen beforehand and allowed for it, then why not prevent it in the first place? That is the number one question in all of theology. There are many answers and many more attempts at answers. The answer God gives most consistently in Scripture in many ways is the least satisfying of them, but I’ll stick to it for now.

He says, “I am God. I see the big picture and know the end from the beginning. I love you enough to send My Son to redeem you from the crap. I AM good, true, holy, righteous. This is who I Am, and you will need to trust Me, even though it is hard. My character is what it is and that knowledge needs to be enough to carry you through appearances otherwise, and I make no apology for it. Will you love and trust me anyway? I promise to make it worth your while and to go through it with you if you will have Me.”

#2 is a tricky one. He clearly specifies that He works good only for those that love Him, and/or are called according to His purpose (will someday love Him?). He also says elsewhere that He will work against His enemies and defeat them. So He is consistent. In many ways, he works against His enemies to reveal them as such (even to themselves) and to give them a chance to see the futility of their path so they may turn away. Yet, He says He will harden hearts against Him to accomplish His purposes. Yet, even those are responsible to Him for their actions. To address this properly is above my pay grade! Therefore, see God’s perspective in the last paragraph. It applies here too. Not a very touchy-feely answer, but it is real. Since you can’t do much about others being enemies or lovers of God, what will you do about yourself?

Where does all of this leave us? It means we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. We do not know how God is moving behind the scenes in the lives of our students and colleagues (or even our family members!). Are they vessels of mercy or wrath? Dunno. So love them. As some less charitable souls have said, “Let God sort them out.” Yep. That’s about the size of it. In the meantime, love them.

SDG

Hard Questions

A reader commented on last week’s post about ‘American Foreign Policy and Islam’ with “Ummmm....ouch?” I emailed her for clarification. Essentially, she was acknowledging the truth of the idea that the truth does hurt sometimes. Our conversation resulted in the following thoughts.

There were some squishy spots for me as I wrote that post. I want to believe that we usually do the right thing as a nation. I am convinced we do a better job than most other super powers in history, but not as good as we would like. It is strange that no matter how paradisaical a human institution is, there is a dark underbelly to it that supports and sustains the alabaster beneficence. That's one reason why we long for heaven, because we cannot create it here.

The more difficult question is--the people that do the work in the underbelly do things that most people find reprehensible. Are they bad people? Are they good people doing bad things for the greater good? Does that last question even make sense morally? Should we support a system that requires those choices be made? When the actions of these people are brought to light, how do we and, separately, how should we, handle them? Are they heroes, or villains, or something in-between--servants who carry out disagreeable work and made the mistake of allowing their work to be seen by the wrong people? At what point do they bear moral responsibility of their actions and at what point are they given a pass for following orders? Where should the buck stop? Especially in a nation "of the people, by the people and for the people."

What do we as a people need to sacrifice in order to have a morally consistent government? Are we willing to give those things up? It is easy to get outraged, for example, when a group of soldiers torture a prisoner, but is it justifiable to prevent further attacks? What if you found out YOU were the one who would have been killed had that attack been done? Does that change your view of torture? If it does, how do you respond to those who would have been safe anyway when they condemn the soldiers who saved your life? How do we even define torture?

I'm not asking or grilling you--these are what float through my head. I picked torture as a flashpoint issue more than as a personal one, but pick your favorite abuse of power or morality. I don't have an answer for these questions. I believe I am fairly wise for my age, but many of these are beyond me. This is why we need to let God be judge.

What guidance do we see from Scripture? Off the top of my head, Paul explains that government wields the sword by God's authority, so some things are 'ok' for government that aren't ok for individuals, apparently. Jesus and John the Baptist did not condemn soldiers for their profession, and mostly gave them restrictions on abusing their authority over civilians. When we look at the warfare in the Bible, we see Israel using spies, covert operations, and many different things at which we squirm today. Does that make those actions right? In some cases, God told them to. In others, there is no comment, for or against, so it is hard to discern.

Let’s raise the stakes even higher. God is judged by us humans for a large number of things we view as atrocities. A short list:

·         The Indonesian tidal wave that killed hundreds of thousands

·         The Haitian earthquake 1 year ago

·         Disease

·         Killing His own Son on a cross

·         Asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, then condemning people who do it as pagans, saying, “Such things never even occurred to me.”

·         Putting Job through hell on earth, destroying his wealth, killing his 10 grown children all at once and giving him disease, all as some sort of celestial bet with Satan. Yeah, sure, he gave it all back to Job including 10 new kids, but that doesn’t help the first ten all that much.

·         Commanding the Hebrews as they invade Canaan to kill every human, even women, infants, children and the old. (and even in some cases, the livestock!)

·         And so on.

Ultimately, God's moral perfection is more real, wilder, and not as clean cut as we would like it. Once again, He blows our expectations out of the water. We equate goodness with naïveté, with niceness, and so on, and God is anything but. As Western Christians, we seem to spend a lot of time defending strange actions and words by God to non-believers. Maybe we should spend that time trying to understand why He does them and conform our image to His rather than His to ours.

Then Job replied to the LORD:

“I know that you can do all things;

no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’

Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,

things too wonderful for me to know.

“You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;

I will question you,

and you shall answer me.’

My ears had heard of you

but now my eyes have seen you.

Therefore I despise myself

and repent in dust and ashes.”

                                                Job 42:1-6

“He is not a tame Lion.”

                                C.S. Lewis

SDG